BOROUGH OF POOLE

EMERGENCY COMMITTEE

CIVIC CENTRE, POOLE

MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 19TH JANUARY 2006

The meeting commenced at 7pm and concluded at 8.30pm

Present:

Councillor Ms Atkinson (Chairman)

Councillors Adams (substituting for Cllr Gillard), Clements, Montrose, Rampton and Miss Wilson

Members of the public present:0

1APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Gillard.

2DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST

None.

3MINUTES

RESOLVED that the Minutes of the Meeting held on 31st October 2005 be confirmed and signed by the Chairman as a correct record.

4SERIOUS FIRE AND WIDE AREA POWER BLACKOUT, 15TH

NOVEMBER 2005 – SERVICE IMPACT ANALYSIS

The Committee considered the Report of the Head of Housing and Community Services together with the Service Impact Analysis prepared by the Emergency Planning Officer (Appendix ‘A’ to the Report).

The Service Impact Analysis sited the incident at the Nelson Stanley Scrap Yard on 15th November 2005 which had started as a localised, serious but manageable fire and rapidly escalated to a Major Incident with the following effect:-

a)a widespread power outage affecting areas of Poole and Bournemouth (75-100,000 homes and business) and

b)simultaneous and severe disruption to telephone and IT systems across the conurbation.

The objectives of the Report were to describe the sequence of events of the incident, provide an analysis of the impact on Council Services and the Council’s response and offer recommendations to improve the Council’s resilience. The major impact was the loss of power and subsequent telephony disruption. The latter manifested itself not only in the Council’s telephone system becoming inoperable but also the mobile phone network employed by the Council being unable to cope with the demand of the incident.

In terms of power outage there were two options open to the Council. The first would be to reinstate the generator from the Civic Centre. The use of this was estimated to be between £80-100,000. Given the likelihood of a similar incident occurring and the ongoing revenue costs it would generate, an alternative recommendation of establishing a work place recovery centre in the Borough for 50 recovery stations was pursued. A Policy Director was leading on developing this proposal for Member’s consideration.

The Chairman referred to the multi-agency that would be taking place on 20th January 2006 and asked for a brief to comment.

The following points were identified

  • need for a community based risk assessment register
  • communication between Council and other’s poor statutory services
  • telecommunications availability poor
  • only one out of hours telephone line therefore contact with the Council difficult
  • no emergency telephone numbers available for residents/media
  • total breakdown in communications – mobile phones not working
  • thanks to the Fire and Police Service who worked well together
  • Rossmore School – no generator

The Chairman emphasised the need to look at the Council’s procedures in the Spring. There was a need for the Council to be decisive and available. The role of the elected member needed to be clearly defined. She also felt that there was a need to review the Mobile Telephone provider. No signals were available in several areas of Poole.

With regard to the Analysis, the Committee queried whether this had been carried out in enough depth?

It was considered that a Report from the appropriate Policy Director on ICT and telephones was essential. The Mobile Telephone system was overloaded and had crashed quickly. This was not considered to be good enough. It was suggested that an air wave system could be installed. Members were reminded that the Council had a contract with Orange and any change could have significant cost implications but this could be referred to Procurement for investigation.

The Emergency Planning Officer advised that the Cabinet Office had disbanded the airwave system in August 2005 but were looking for a new Emergency Communication System using airwave. He said that no information would be available until much later in the year.

The Committee expressed concerns about the breakdown of the Mobile Network so early in the day and the lack of any power at the Civic Centre.

The Chairman felt that there should be a full options appraisal on the installation of a back up power generator in the Civic Centre.

One Member expressed concern about the proposed generators and suggested that 600KVH was too large. He called for a further detailed report on equipment and facilities currently available to the Council and what was lacking.

Simon Hendey suggested that the matter be referred to Property Services for more detailed information.

The Chair invited Peter Pawlowski, Policy Director, for his observations and comments.

Mr Pawlowski said that his assessment of the debate was that Members were not satisfied with the report. The report was not robust. It lacked width in the sense that a number of Member concerns were not identified. It also lacked sufficient depth of analysis and was therefore missing the opportunity to learn from the issues raised by the major incident. Members had insufficient information on which to base decisions. Given that the Multi-Agency wash-up meeting had not yet occurred it was potentially a premature report. He suggested that Members required a far more comprehensive, detailed and analytical report in order to feel that valuable learning points were recognised and appropriate measures implemented. He suggested that Officers report again following the Multi-Agency wash up and receipt of the report on the Review of the Borough’s Emergency Planning Arrangements. Some of the issues raised would not have simple solutions and in themselves might present substantial pieces of work that would need resource planning. However what should accompany the Report would be a detailed Action Plan that would identify individual action points. Timescales, lead Officers, any milestones and performance targets would be clearly indicated. Members would then be in a position to satisfy themselves that all issues had been identified, be able to debate the recommended further work or remedial action and be in a position to monitor future progress.

RESOLVED that

(a)the Service Impact Analysis prepared by the Emergency Planning Officer (Major Incident – Fire and Wide Area Power Blackout, 15th November 2005) be noted and in the light of the suggestions made by the Policy Director, a further report, together with a detailed Action Plan be submitted to a future meeting;

(b)the Chairman convey the Committee’s aforementioned comments to the multi-agency de-brief to be held on 20th January 2006; and

(c)the Head of Property Services be requested to provide detailed reports on the proposal to establish a work place recovery centre for the Borough.

5REVIEW OF THE BOROUGH OF POOLE EMERGENCY PLANNING ARRANGEMENTS

The Committee considered the Report by the Head of Housing and Community Services informing Members of the intention to commission an independent review of the Council’s Emergency Planning arrangements.

The Committee was reminded that a number of emergency situations during the past eighteen months had tested the Council’s and other Agency’s plans and responses. Additionally, new statutory requirements had been placed on the Council as a result of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, which had already been reported to Committee.

In the light of these two factors it was thought appropriate to review the Council’s current Emergency Planning arrangements as well as its management arrangements. Consequently, it was intended to commission a Review, to be undertaken by Tim Griffin, an LGA advisor on Emergency Planning and an ex-Chief Executive.

The essence of the review would be to:-

a)review current emergency planning arrangements in the light of best practice and make recommendations where appropriate;

b)identify areas of the plan yet to be tested and make recommendations for the best way to test that aspect of the plan;

c)review preparedness of service units in the light of their emergency planning responsibilities; and

d)make recommendations of how cross authority and multi-agency management arrangements could be improved.

The Review would be short in duration commencing with a desk top study. The intention would be to interview the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Emergency Committee and the Service Unit Head or representatives who had responsibilities in relation to the Emergency Plan. The timescale for the review would be within the next two months dependant upon the availability of those to be interviewed.

RESOLVED that

(i)the report be noted; and

(ii)the findings of the Review of Emergency Planning Arrangements in Poole be submitted to a future meeting.

URGENT ITEM

6EMERGENCY PLANNING COURSE, EASINGWOLD, YORK –13TH AND 14TH FEBRUARY 2006

The Chairman reminded those who were attending this course to advise the Principal Democratic Support Officer, at the earliest opportunity, how they intended to travel to York so that arrangements for travel could be made.

CHAIRMAN

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